A Hogwarts Christmas Carol
by Starrarose
Summary: ..."Bah Humbug" Was this really what the "Golden Boy" said?
1. Bah Humbug

**Disclaimer**: looks around Anyone been living under a rock lately? Raise your hand if you REALLY think JKR would publish stories on when she could get these published and make money off them Looks around to see no hands raised Now that that's out of the way this WILL most likely be SLASH, it probably won't take too long to get to the citrus part of the story, Harry and Draco will NOT be jumping into bed to have hot slashy sex in the first 5 paragraphs (I have to do SOMETHING to set the story up)

**Summary**: A not so long Christmas fic that jumped into my head and insisted I write. I WILL get back to "A Different Year" I'm stuck halfway through Chapter 3 – and I will not leave it hanging where it is at the moment. No real plot advance has happened – well not enough.

-

"Looking forward to tomorrow Harry?" Hermione asked at 8:30pm Christmas Eve of their 6th year.

"Bah Humbug" was the only response from the normally cheerful boy.

"Did he just say 'Bah humbug' Herm? What does he mean?" Ron asked from where he was nibbling on Hermione's neck.

"**HE** can't see any **reason** to be cheerful about a holiday that should be spent with family when **he** has none who care about him and **his two best friends** have been more interested in sucking face with each other than talking to **him** for the past month" Harry spat out before storming out of the Great Hall headed towards the Gryffindor Tower and his bed.

Ron and Hermione just looked at each other in shock. Harry hadn't seemed to mind them getting together before now, sure he'd been vanishing a bit lately, but they hadn't really noticed, they thought he was just giving him time to themselves for a while.

"Weasley, granger, what did Potter do that finally split the lip lock apart that you two have had for the past month?" came a familiar drawl from behind them.

Ron just gaped but Hermione turned around and stared at Malfoy and his newest side-kick

"Harry doesn't want to celebrate Christmas tomorrow" Hermione blurted out

"Really?" Malfoy drawled "let me guess, he's decided he has no family, his friends don't care about him anymore and oh yeah there's a hypocritical, psychopathic **lunatic** after him whose only Christmas wish is to have Potter wrapped up dead in a coffin under his Christmas tree?"

"Well, except for the psychopath bit that's what he said yeah" Ron stammered at last

"How did you know Malfoy?" Hermione asked

"Remember that oh so wonderful idea that Dumbledore, Snape, Sprout, McGonagall and Flitwick came up with at the start of the year to encourage "Inter-House Unity"? The one involving dueling with those who feel the need to get rid of some frustrations?"

The Gryffindor pair just nodded silently

"potter and I have been using each other for the past month to get rid of assorted frustrations and to train for the final battle with Moldy Voldie at the same time"

"No way Malfoy, you're lying why would Potter volunteer to be hexed by you?" Malfoy's sidekick piped up "I know Potter may have a death wish but I wouldn't have said he was suicidal"

Hermione looked at the boy, noting his dark, kind of sexy Italian looks "And you are?" she drawled in the same tone as she had to Ron on the train first year

"Blaise Zabini, Slytherin bad boy numero deuce – no body beats the Prince here"

"Zabini raises a good point Malfoy" Ron interjected, not liking the way Hermione was looking at the Slytherin boy "Why you?"

Draco looked at Blaise and they both walked around the table and at down opposite the Gryffindor pair.

"I'll tell you Weasley, but quickly as we then have to come up with a way to get Potter out of this funk."

Draco's companions looked at him in disbelief. He just shook his head and held up a hand forestalling any comments, "Just listen ok? At first neither Potter nor myself wanted to fight each other, me not wanting the entire Gryffindor house hexing me in the hallways should I beat the "Golden Boy", and by the way don't ever let him **hear** you call him that, good way to be eating slugs"

Ron turned green remembering the incident that had left **him** eating slugs in second year.

"I digress, and him not wanting to have to dodge dark magic from those death eater children who took exception to him beating their "Prince" and I hate that title almost as much as Potter hates his so if I ever hear it again I will hex you stupider than Goyle Zabini"

Blaise gulped and nodded quickly

"I digress again. After potter had hexed every single Hufflepuff, half the Ravenclaws and a quarter of the Slytherins who showed up the first day, and I had hexed everyone else, Gryffindors included, and between us we'd caused Pomfrey to have to extend the hospital ward as she couldn't get all the hexes off fast enough, Dumbledore informed us that we would from then on be duelling each other **exclusively** or he'd ban us from attending at all. There wasn't much choice to be had, no one else was willing to step up and be hexed into the hospital wing by either of us and it was them who'd gone to Dumbledore in the first place so we duelled each other."

"Who wins" Hermione asked quietly

Draco shrugged elegantly "Depends on who has had the worst day, actually we're about even, half the time he wins, half the time I do. After the first couple of duels that went for **far** longer than any student duel should go for –"

"How long" Ron interrupted

"On average, 6 hours straight. Anyway –"

"**SIX** hours **STRAIGHT????**" Hermione butted in "No way Harry's never been missing for … that…. Never mind" she mumbled as Draco raised his eyebrow at her, reminding her of some very intense and very LONG petting sessions she and Ron had had earlier in the month

"To get back to the story, we don't have much time you know, Potter and I decided to set a time limit of an hour of actual duelling, followed by an hour of talking through the problems, then more duelling if we still weren't any closer to coming to a solution for the problem. Since both of us have problems that no amount of duelling can take care of – at least no amount of duelling with **each other** we've talked quite a lot this past month."

"Alright Malfoy, so you know Harry's problems now why are you so insistent that we don't have much time to change Harry's mind about Christmas?" Ron asked warily

Draco looked at Ron and sighed, pointing to the clock "Because you twit it's taken me half an hour to tell you this which means that it **is** Christmas in three hours."

"So what do we do?" Blaise asked "And why am I helping you save Potter's mind anyway?"

"Because Blaise, if Potter doesn't kill Mouldy Voldie before we turn of age then our fathers are going to make us become Death Eaters and we'll die horrible painful deaths remember?" Draco said in a long suffering voice, letting the Gryffindors know that the pair had had this conversation before, many times.

"oh yeah. Got a plan?" Blaise asked sheepishly

"I do" Hermione said quietly. 'It's a Muggle story, very famous in the Muggle world, called "A Christmas Carol" written by –"

"Dickens yes, and if you think that was a Muggle story you obviously haven't read 'Famous wizards and their biographies' yet have you Granger? Dickens was a wizard, the Scrooge personality – that was him. His best friend cast a spell, come to think of it, that spell's in the library, come on" Draco got up and ran to the library, followed closely by the other three.

-

**A/N**: Okay, there is more to this story, the funny, amusing slightly strange night that Harry has. I'm going to do each, Past, Present and Future in separate chapters.


	2. A Solution of Sorts

**Disclaimer**: looks around Anyone been living under a rock lately? Raise your hand if you REALLY think JKR would publish stories on when she could get these published and make money off them Looks around to see no hands raised Now that that's out of the way this WILL most likely be SLASH, it probably won't take too long to get to the citrus part of the story, Harry and Draco will NOT be jumping into bed to have hot slashy sex in the first 5 paragraphs (I have to do SOMETHING to set the story up)

**Summary**: A not so long Christmas fic that jumped into my head and insisted I write. I WILL get back to "A Different Year" I'm stuck halfway through Chapter 3 – and I will not leave it hanging where it is at the moment. No real plot advance has happened – well not enough.

**A/N:** A quick thanks to my reviewers. imLittleLily, xunderdogx, hpdmslashrocks, SLNS and harrypottermoveover. My deepest apologies for the wait for this next chapter – the wait won't be as long for chapter 3 it's half written now. RL crap came up and bit me in the butt big time.

**A/N 2:** Yes I KNOW that Draco is OOC, it's _fan fiction_ of course he's OOC, I'm not JKR

_**Chapter 2: A solution of sorts…**_

"So Malfoy, just out of curiosity were _any_ of the great Muggle authors actually muggles?" Hermione asked as they all looked for the spell that Draco knew he'd seen in the library but couldn't remember where.

"The Bronte's were muggles but most of the rest were actually wizards" Draco replied absently

Meanwhile Blaise had taken to reading page titles out loud while he flipped them "Two cities tale spell, Talking cat spell, _Orgia familiaris natilis natilis Christ_ spell, Past live re-"

"What was that last one Blaise?" Draco asked suddenly interested

"Past lives relived?" Blaise said looking up

"No before that" Ron put in his stomach twisting

"Oh, _Orgia familiaris natilis natilis Christ_ spell. What does that mean anyway?" Blaise replied.

Hermione and Draco both opened their mouths to reply but Ron was faster still "Literal translation 'Festival of mysteries belonging to birthday Christ' colloquially –" Draco cut him off

"It's the spell we're looking for Zabini, check the book and let's go cast it then."

Hermione raised an eyebrow but said nothing, Ron on the other hand couldn't keep quiet "And just where are we going Malfoy, and shouldn't we check the spell _before_ we cast it?"

Draco just glared, "No Weasley we don't need to, I've read it before, and the only items needed are three wizards or witches and their wands. We've got 4 people with us and we're running out of time"

"You still didn't say where we are going Malfoy" Hermione put in coolly

"Gryffindors!" Draco exclaimed throwing his hands in the air "The only place we _can_ cast this spell is wherever Harry is. We have to cast it on him after all"

Hermione and Ron exchanged a look. That was the second time Malfoy had called Harry by his first name.

-- _Gryffindor Tower _--

Harry was in a filthy mood. He'd really had enough of all this Christmas crap, and the sickly sweetness of Ron and Hermione, not to mention the fact that he just **_knew_** Dumbledore was keeping things – important things – about Voldemort from him, the whole Voldemort wanting to kill him factor and on top of all this, the general hormonal teenage male maladies. He'd been walking around all day with a half hard cock and he hadn't been able to catch Draco's eye at dinner to set up a meeting that night to ease at least one of the frustrations he was having. So he did what any teenage angst-ridden male would do under those circumstances – he went to bed. He was asleep five minutes later after taking care of the easiest problem he had by himself.

Meanwhile outside the common room the four "Angels of Mercy" as Blaise had coined their little group were having a little trouble themselves.

"You are **prefects** Miss Granger, Mr Weasley, you know better than to let those slimy Slytherins know where the tower is, let alone what the password is" the Fat Lady was saying.

Hermione rolled her eyes at this and firmly clamped a hand over Ron's mouth, forestalling the angry outburst.

"Let me try Granger" Draco murmured. He turned and addressed the portrait "My fair lady I do humbly beg your forgiveness for being here in the first place, but my friends and I simply must be permitted to come in. You see there is a severe problem in our own dorm room and Mr Weasley and Miss Granger have graciously allowed us to spend the night in the Gryffindor Common Room to avoid it"

The Fat Lady looked suspicious "What kind of problem? I won't let you in to terrorise my charges without fair reason Slytherin"

Draco smiled gently "My lady, my name is Draco Malfoy and our problem is Death Eaters – namely their children. Neither myself nor my fellow Slytherin here wish to become Death Eaters and Mr Zabini here let that fact slip at dinner time this evening, thereby putting our lives in danger, hence Mr Weasley's invitation to the safest place for a Slytherin 'turncoat' to hide – In Gryffindor Tower." He said sincerely

The Fat Lady's hostility melted instantly. "Of course my dears, I do apologise for the delay, come right on in, and for you two, if you ever need sanctuary again your personal password is 'Dragon Tamer'" so saying she swung open and allowed them access.

Ron just looked at Malfoy in awe. "Nobody's ever been able to do that before – not even Neville and he's a Gryffindor. But aren't you afraid she will spread the news? She's a bigger gossip than Lavender and Parvarti."

Draco shared a long look with Blaise who nodded solemnly, "Weasley, with the exception of you actually inviting us in here everything I said was the truth. Zabini _did_ let slip that neither of us want to be Death Eaters. What I left out was that we've already told Professor Dumbledore who promptly owled our parents telling them that we will be in isolation until our severe dose of magical chicken pocks have cleared up. Apparently we're in the "delirium stage" right now, so no one should take anything we say seriously. After that we had to go through the rigmarole of having delusions at the dinner table – so now the whole of Slytherin thinks that I want to get into Harry Potter's pants and shag him silly and Zabini wants to get into yours Weasley, with any luck those two titbits will stop anything from being sent to our parents"

Hermione giggled "So you told everyone the truth Draco when they are less likely to believe it, I'll buy that, but why did you go to Dumbledore? Why not Professor Snape?"

Draco glared at her, but Blaise was the one who spoke "Snape is a Death Eater; Dumbledore on the other hand is just like us – a Slytherin on the opposite side of Mouldy Voldie."

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look and shook their heads ruefully, both thinking the same thing 'How little they know him, but he's a brilliant actor if he's convinced them'

Draco butted in quickly "Which way to the boy's dorm? We have to cast this soon"

Zabini opened the book that he was still carrying and read over the spell again carefully. When he finished he started laughing "Draco, I'm volunteering to be lookout for this one. You, Weasley and Granger are doing this one alone, I don't fit _any_ of these requirements, I'm an acquaintance not a friend" he managed to say through his laughter, shoving the book at Hermione.

Hermione read over the spell and paled, "Draco Malfoy I am going to kill you slowly and painfully over this. I'm going to take the Christmas Present, as I don't know if either of you can pronounce that charm correctly but I know that I can, you can fight over the other two, however Ron, I suggest you take Christmas Past" she said through her teeth, shoving the book at Draco.

Draco raised and eyebrow and quickly read the instructions, "Hmm, Weasley I agree with Granger, you take Christmas Past, after all I'm not sure that you would care for an exchange of bodily fluids with Harry any time soon now do you?"

Blaise started giggling as Ron's face turned white, then a bright red colour that rivalled his hair. "What exactly do you mean by 'share bodily fluids' Malfoy? Ron asked suspiciously.

"Ooh let me" Blaise said excitedly, taking the book back off Draco. "The _Orgia familiaris natilis natilis Christ_ spell was designed to halt the nasty cycle of self pity and self destruction that can cause previously happy and cheerful people to become Christmas hating scrooges. The charms themselves are simple enough to understand and perform, however to really summon the true feelings behind the _Ghosts of Christmas Past Present and Future_ there needs to be more than just a charm and fancy wand movements. There needs to be a human element. For the summoning of the _Ghost of Christmas Past_ there is required a strong bond of friendship between the caster of the charm and the recipient of the charm. (n1) For the summoning of the _Ghost of Christmas Present_ there is required both a strong – yet different - bond of friendship between the caster and the recipient, as well as some chocolate sauce (n2). For the summoning of the _Ghost of Christmas Future_ there is required another strong – yet different again – bond of friendship, as well as the chocolate sauce and a small exchange of bodily fluids from the caster to the recipient. (n3) The charms to use are the following:

Past: _Memoria Vetustas_

Present: _Impraesentiarum Vetustas_

Future: _Futurus Vetustas_

Use this spell responsibly at all times and be careful to take note of the fine print in all situations." Blaise finished reading the particular reference and beamed at the other three.

Ron stared at Draco "Why on earth would Harry _want_ to share bodily fluids with you? And by the way, that is phrased really gross, how _old_ were these guys when they wrote this?"

Draco smirked, "Weasley, don't ask questions that you and I both know you really don't want the answers to. Just take your wand, memorise the charm and go and cast it on your best friend. We all know that your friendship with Harry is the strongest."

Ron nodded, quickly wrote down the charm he had to perform on a scrap of paper and dashed up the stairs to the boy's dorm.

Hermione looked at Draco knowingly "You're not bothered with sharing a little bit of spit with your biggest rival now are you Draco?" she asked slyly.

"How right you are Granger," Draco laughed "But don't ask me why, as I really don't wish to tell you that"

Hermione chuckled "I already know why Draco – "

"Why are you calling him Draco, Granger?" Blaise interjected curiously

"Because it's his name, and I figured that all things considered, I have the right to use it now. Especially since he's using the first name of his greatest rival in front of us _uptight bloody Gryffindors_ without batting an eyelash. Besides, I read the fine print on that charm"

Draco's usually pale skin, paled even further "Oh no, I forgot about that" he mumbled, sinking into a chair.

Hermione just smiled and settled in to wait for Ron.

--

**A/N 2:** Okay everyone, I just thought I really should stick this in here, yes I know I've got 3 "notes" in the chapter – they will become clear in future chapters…. As they are notes to the spell, not to the story.

R/R and tell me what you think! I've got the next two chapters written, just gotta type them up before I can post them, while I do that, you review and make me happy! Slash in future chapters, not the next one, or really the following one (Although if you read between the lines it's implied) but full out slash by chapter 5 :D


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